As the
Farrelly brothers, Peter and Bobby, have attempted to evolve as storytellers,
abandoning the farce of their peak output for a more character-driven
sensibility, they have, in fact, lost the edge that set them up as the kings of
the extended gag. There are shadows
of their past in Hall Pass,
particularly one bit that takes a seemingly throwaway line about the sexual
desperation of one character and plays it out to its pathetic extreme, but the
rest of the long-form jokes are old standbys or false starts.

The setup
is rife with potential, as two married men fantasize about their respective
pasts as single men, only to be confronted head-on with how futile the attempt
to recapture the glory days really is. Within
this bubble of collective denial, the two main characters are isolated from
judgment of their chauvinistic actions and attitude, simply by virtue of lacking
any tangible sense of self-awareness. The
fact that we only laugh at them and their folly is forgivable, since it is so
heartily deserved.

The two
men are Rick (Owen Wilson) and Fred (Jason Sudeikis), best friends since time
immemorial. They are married,
respectively, to Maggie (Jenna Fischer) and Grace (Christina Applegate), who get
together and laugh at how their husbands check out other women right in front of
them. A psychologist friend (Joy
Behar) recommends the two women give their husbands a "hall pass," a
week off from marriage during which the boys can go out and do whatever (and, by
extension, whomever) they want. She
tried it with her own husband, and they haven't been happier.

Maggie has
had enough with Rick's blasť attitude toward their marriage and gives him carte
blanche for a week of freedom from marriage. Grace soon follows suit, and Rick and Fred plan out a week of single
living, with their friends tagging along to live vicariously through their
exploits.

The last
straw for Grace comes in the scene I hinted to before. At one point, as Rick and Fred commiserate about having to masturbate
while they're married, Fred mentions that, to hide his late-night activity from
his wife, he gets in the family car, turns on the radio, and has at it (It
reminds him of when he lost his virginity). Later on, we cut to Fred, sitting in the car parked in front of the
house, listening to Styx, and you can guess the rest.

The image
itself is amusing enough, and then the stakes are raised. A string of double-takes, including a vehicular one, ensue, as Fred,
oblivious to his surroundings, is eyeballed and mocked by the last people anyone
would want to be caught by with his pants down in public.

As their
newfound freedom begins, of course there's a minor reference and foreshadow to
what will inevitably become the moral of the story, as Rick ponders, "Just
because your wife says it's ok to cheat, does that make it ok?" The concern is out the window until he's directly confronted with the
possibility of actually following through, and until that point, the screenplay
(by the directors and Pete Jones and Kevin Barnett) sets them on the hunt for
women. The scenario works best
during the early part of their week off, as they settle into the places in which
they're comfortable now. Instead of
a club, they make their way to the bar at a chain restaurant, gorging themselves
on food and heading to bed before 10 o'clock at night.

The simple
jokes, like a shot of Rick and Fred passed out in their beds at the hotel room
where they're staying for the week for an entire day after the tiring previous
one, work best here, and the screenplay struggles as the pair completely loses
focus on their goal. There's a
rambling day at a golf course after eating too many marijuana-laced brownies
(The joke of accidental or unintentional drug use has really become a pitiful
crutch to get characters to do wacky things and rarely works; it doesn't here). Fred's trip to a massage parlor for a "happy ending" is a setup
with no punch line. The movie finds
some life with the introduction of Richard Jenkins as a globe-trotting friend
with a sixth sense for how women behave.

Then,
naturally, Hall Pass gets on its high
horse, as the buddies realize how hopeless they are without their wives (Who
are, themselves, being wooed by other men, and wouldn't it be refreshing to
watch them escape their loser husbands?). How
it gets them to that point is contrived (a car crash (as punishment?) here, a
car chase there), and no, we really don't care if they learn a lesson in the
first place.